By: Adity Sharma
August 05, 2006
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FeedbackIn academia, when a myth is punctured through empirical analysis,
credited scholars are allowed to come on stage to propound their
contradiction and alternatives to the evidence that has been disproved.
Well, not according to the Indian secularists and apologists for Christian
missionaries and the quotidian disquisitions dished out as absolute truth
even though it has been confounded again and again. The scholars
propounding alternatives to a popular myth or theory are quickly dubbed as
Hindu fanatics. These apologists are not just unwittingly supporting the
anti-Indian cabal, but they have a long standing agenda, i.e. to malign
anything Hindu or concerning India's true history.

From time immemorial, the Christian missionaries in cahoots with
colonialists have devised maleficent designs to discredit the hi story of
Sanatan Dharm, falsely plant Christianity in Bharat, and aggrandize
so-called Saints for their charity which had an ulterior plan of its own.
These designs have become more pernicious and pronounced, because they now
not only exist in India to poison people's mind but have transgressed
beyond its borders.

Origins of Sanatan Dharm

A very good transnational example of this venom masquerading as history is
the recent furor over the proposed edits by the Hindu Education Foundation
(HEF) and Vedic Foundation (VF) to the California school Board of
Education concerning the prejudicial portrayal of Hinduism in school
history textbooks.

Here Michael Witzel and Steve Farmer tried to argue that the Aryan
invasion theory is indeed veritable, why? By claiming that the Aryans
brought Hinduism, wrote the Vedas, and subsequently ruled by force. This
is not only denying Sanatan Dharm its rightful place in shaping the
history of Bharat, butt it is also with all intent and purpose
gratuitously pitting the putative indigenous Dravidians of the southern
part of India against the supposed foreign Aryans.

The theory posits that Hinduism was really imported from central Asia by
nomadic Indo-Aryan tribes that conquered the Dravidians an advanced
society around 1500-100BC. It goes on to claim that the Dravidian people
were defeated, subjugated and pushed to the south by the light-skinned
Aryans. This noxious theory was engineered by a Christian chauvinist named
Friedrich Max Muller during British rule in the early nineteenth century.
It is ironic that texts such as the Bible and the Quran that have no
standing in the scientific world are not refuted, but a religion that has
produced a large corpus of not only literary and Dharmic ideals, but has
also provided us with sufficient proof that a civilization's existence in
the particular places that are being haughtily disputed today were indeed
its homeland is not taken seriously.

Now, anyone even remotely familiar with the Aryan migration premise, knows
that it is spurious. there is ample archeological, linguistic,
anthropological, literary, astronomical, and historical evidence that
turns this theory on its head. For instance, Vedic scholar Dr. David
Frawley in his article titled “Solid Evidence Debunking Aryan Invasion”,
summarizes that this couldn't possibly be true for the following reasons:
first, according to Dr. Frawley, many propagators of the Aryan migration
premise have claimed that the Aryans used Horse-drawn chariots and had
sophisticated weaponry like iron that the Dravidians eventually succumbed
to. The refutation is that there was no evidence of iron in the excavation
of the Indus Valley sites. However, horses were discovered not only in the
Indus valley sites, but also in the pre-Indus sites, this according to Dr.
Frawley means that horses were very much a part of ancient Indian economic
life.

Furthermore, chariots can not travel over mountains and deserts, they are
more suited for flat lands. Second, the claim is that there is a prevalent
and sustained conflict between the light-skinned Aryans against the
dark-skinned Dravidians. Some fatuous secularists have even gone as far as
to claim that the Dravidians are the modern day untouchables. They have
gone on to say that the attempt to dispute the Aryan Migration Premise
stems from a desire by Hindutva proponents to make an Aryan nation modeled
on the hitlerian concept of a supremacist Aryan race fashioned in the
1930s by the Nazis. The first claim is false because there is a constant
theme of light and dark in the Vedas. But this has nothing to do with
Aryan racism; it simply means a struggle between good and evil. The
Sanskrit word Arya did not even explicitly or implicitly suggest race or
ethnicity, but the word Aryan of the Nordic concept had nothing but race
in mind. It is probably made to look like a race struggle because many
Westerners upon seeing the words light-skinned versus dark-skinned
immediately shun Hinduism, and all intellectual gumption is quickly
jettisoned, and hence this ploy was an excellent conversion tool for the
Christian missionaries. Racism is an ethnocentric concept that only the
Europeans can claim credit to. We usually are weary of anyone tagging us
as racists, obscurantist, or fanatics, so, this was a clever trick on the
part of Muller and today's propagators of this vicious lie and it puts
many Hindus on the defensive. Therefore, it becomes facile to alienate the
Hindus from the cradle of their civilization by telling them that Bharat
was never their true homeland to begin with.
It is likely that the Indus valley civilization was destroyed by floods as
discovered in the excavation by the (National Institute of Oceanography in
India). Dr. Frawley also states that the inhabitants of Gujarat and Punjab
are more or less the same ethnically and linguistically as they were
before the so-called Aryan invasion.

Still, anti-Hindu academics whearring the garb of scholarly research like
Ramila Thapar, Michael Witzel, Steve Farmer, and Wendy Doniger continue to
float lies as truths. In the face of more than sufficient evidence, they
keep repeating that there is not enough evidence that shows Hinduism was
indeed an indigenous religion to India; it seems that these "scholars are
suffering from what is known in psychology as confirmation bias. This is
when the victim ignores all the proof that he/she finds in conflict to
their point.

When elementary school children learn about the Aryan migration premise
and other malicious concoctions, they only have one thing in mind i.e.
Hinduism is a foreign and intolerant religion imposed forcibly on a
people, that were coerced in to the rigid fold of a discrimination
oriented creed.

The book titled "Update on the Aryan Invasion Debate" by European
historian Dr. Koenraad Elst offers contradiction to the Aryan migration
premise and discusses just why such a theory was floated by the British,
present day Western Indologists, and Indian "secularists" in full
cooperation with Muslim and Christian theologians.

The reason given by Dr. Elst for the expeditious acceptance of the theory
is that at the time of its concoction there was no disputation proffered
by anyone, it seemed like the right thing to do. Another more sinister
aspect according to the author is the abrogation of Sanskrit as an Indian
language by Indian politicians to be taught as school subjects under the
pretext that it is a foreign language brought by foreign peoples (Elst,
33). The second reason is, to mobilize the Dravidians to hate everything
that represents traditional Brahmanism (46). An example sited by Dr. Elst
is that many Dalit organizations have published vitriolic writings on the
so-called blatant arrogance and opulence of Brahmans; it is wholly
specious and propagandistic to say that the Brahmans are the only wealthy
class in India (50). The author states, "It is legitimate to criticize
caste; but it is perverse to do so on the basis of false history (64)."

The astronomical evidence presented in Dr. Elst's book explains how the Rg
Veda described the exact location of the Indus valley civilization. It
also says that the dates propounded by the Hindu astronomers during the
Vedic age were more or less correct (89). When John Playfair, a European
historian put forth the supposition that the Rg-Veda was as old as 4300
B.C., it was considered to be inordinately insane. But it was not disputed
by any scientists of the day, and presently, it is a powerful counterpoint
to the Aryan migration premise.

Saint Thomas in India?

Just as the Aryan invasion theory has done its damage in history, so has
another myth decorated with variegated frosting of clever ploys with an
obvious purpose. This particular creativity comes from the Christian
Theologians/missionaries in India, and it is the myth of St. Thomas. This
so-called apostle St. Thomas, according to popularized missionary
propaganda, came to India around 52 A.D., he founded the Syrian Christian
community, and was murdered by" fanatical" Hindu Brahmans in 73 A.D. This
not only served to vilify the Brahmans but it is also used to play the
lower Christianized castes against the upper castes. Christianity's
history abounds with self-victimization and self-imposed and most of the
time false martyrdom. I was shocked to learn

from a peer belonging to the (Bible Society) on campus who told me that,
"The only way to discover Christ, was from suffering, and that it was good
that people were suffering." "That way they will discover
Christ's love."
How can a faith that supposedly inculcates fear and a fervent desire to
suffer, uplift the so-called uncivilized peoples of the world?
Christianity's flocks, it seems have stuck to its dogmatic doctrine not
out of devotion, but from fear.

The Saint Thomas story is not a novelty at all; in fact it is a long
running exercise to indigenous and sanitize the fanaticism of Christianity
more specifically Roman-Catholicism in India. This most likely is a
sustained effort to efface the outrageous enormities perpetrated by the
Portuguese in the 16th and 17th centuries in places such as Goa and the Malabar
coast. In his piece "In Memory of a Slain Saint", which appeared in the
Indian Express in December 1989, C.A. Simon emphatically contended that
Saint Thomas really did exist and his visit to India was a blessing to the
downtrodden and oppressed classes. He further aggrandizes St. Thomas by
claiming that there were miracles performed everywhere, and sure enough
many converted. Does this line of
reasoning sound all too familiar? Of course, the downtrodden were just
waiting for a cultured and "egalitarian" faith like Christianity to rescue
them from the evils of Hinduism. This reasoning is as old as
Christianity's exclusivist existence is.

In a rejoinder to C.A. Simon, titled "The Legend of a Slain Saint to Stain
Hinduism", by Swami Tapasyananda states that this pernicious legend was
contrived by the Portuguese to hide their glaring fanaticism, because they
occupied Mylapore from 1522-1697. It was in the 16th century when the
decimation of the Kapaleeswara temple occurred. The Santhome church was
built and was often repaired. It also challenges the very existence of
such a saint and whether he came to India or not. Furthermore, Catholicism
and Christianity in general has always claimed full rights where ever it
has ventured, and this myth fits perfectly in that mold of claiming land
and more land for Christ.

Mother Teresa's "altruism"

It is unfortunately a sad fact that many Hindus have forgotten Seva or
selfless service to society, that is perspicuously prescribed in the
Bhagavad-Gita by ShriKrishn. But, it would also be a lie to sublime those
who have only by clever publicity stunts managed to give the misleading
impression of altruism. On October 19th 1999, a much popularized and
overrated woman was beatified as a saint by the late Pope, and this
"saint" was mother Teresa.

Mother Teresa came to India to administer to the poor and ill, however,
her actions are indicatory of anything but selfless service to the poor
and ill. She was, like many of her critics have pointed out, a friend of
the wealthy; her extreme opposition to abortion does not help her image
much either. Ensuing the Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal in 1984, mother
Teresa rushed to the scene and said, "Forgive, forgive, forgive." Forgive?
After investigations, it was amply clear that the corporation had
pre-warnings about the disaster, so why should the victims forgive?
Another unduly foolish answer to a question of what she was planning to do
in regard to housing and jobs for the victims by a Bhopal resident, was
"First, we must learn to love one another." It is
excruciatingly painful to believe that such a willfully ignorant person
was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. It is even more astonishing that no
"savant" found it worth their time to criticize such an asinine and
unwholesome decision made by the committee. Mother Teresa did not treat
poverty as a disease that needs to be eradicated but as a blessing. She
blamed Calcutta's poverty on the people's refusal to accept Christ. Again,
we see that Christ comes to those who are hopelessly suffering, sort of
like a drug that only induces a desperate person, not a healthy one.

However, not everyone has been hypnotized by an overdose of falsities,
Christopher Hitchons in his book titled "The Missionary Position: Mother
Teresa in Theory and Practice, through thorough investigation evinces a
completely different and less flattering side of the putative saint. In
the book Hitchons meticulously expatiates about the total and complete
lack of proof of Mother Teresa's charity to the poor. For instance,
although Mother got the finest medical treatment for herself in the West,
there isn't any substantial proof of any hospitals or orphanages that were
indeed built by Mother Teresa (Hitchons 37). Of course, she received
millions, but what happened to them, is the question. The author also
denounces her as a right-wing Christian fundamentalist, who went out of
her way to varnish the atrocious actions of the Contras and death squads
in Nicaragua, endorsed the Duvalier in Haiti the cause of much poverty in
that country, and her extreme opposition to abortion under any
circumstance.

We must realize that these myths are making us forget the greatness of our
culture, and the people who have rendered selfless service to the nation
which, incidentally do not ask nor get any attention from any media
outlet. If some of these myths and other such falsehoods can be corrected,
then there can be a greater focus on issues more concern. Actively
challenging these myths is also intellectual and it silences the
"secularists" who are only apt at hurling invectives and nothing else. One
can ignorantly argue that what's done is done, but unless we make a
concerted effort to erase these lies they will grow like bacteria, and
become clogged and solidify in the arteries of history.

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